WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama will next month send Congress a new plan for measuring progress in Pakistan and Afghanistan, in an effort to build confidence among wavering Democrats and give sharper direction to a costly and increasingly bloody war, according to White House officials. The administration has begun seeking feedback on the plan from lawmakers and their staffs. The finished version is to be delivered to Capitol Hill by Sept 24, a congressionally mandated date for a report on Afghanistan. Theres an intense impatience here for results, and I think an absolutely understandable impatience among the American people for results, a senior administration official told POLITICO, a political website news service. In the course of August, these plans will be complete. Along with an array of dozens of numerical indicators, a system of red, yellow and green indicators will help White House and congressional policymakers spot which objectives are in trouble, which are unchanged since the last report, and which are showing significant progress. We dont have a long track record here in terms of measuring progress and then sharing that assessment with Congress, another official said. A senior administration official was quoted as saying: Because we believe the American people deserve clarity on our progress in Afghanistan, we have compiled a comprehensive set of metrics based on the objectives laid out by the president and informed by a stringent intelligence review. We have briefed members of Congress and their staffs over the past few weeks. Work has already started on the first quarterly round of measurements and we expect to continue engaging Congress in the months ahead. The matrix is referred to as the SIP - Strategic Implementation Plan. Officials say its ambitious enough that they joke it should have been named the GULP. National Security Adviser James Jones signature is actually on the document, and it directs actions here in Washington, so therell be accountability among departments and agencies, State, Defence, the intelligence community, various parts of the intelligence community, an official said. It also, however, specifies some actions that we expect to be taken by the first tier of American leaders in theatre. The official said one measurement is the proportion of the Afghan population that is now secured. Others will put demands on Obamas new commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal; the US ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry; and the ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W Patterson. On the military side, there have been 21,000 additional troops requested, the official said. The president has approved the movement of those troops, and were going to track and make sure they arrived. On the civilian side, theres an order of magnitude less than 21,000 civilians who have been requested, and were going to track their progress. The document will include specific metrics under nine broad objectives - some of them classified, and divided roughly half for Afghanistan and half for Pakistan. The list has not been released, but is likely to leak after it goes to lawmakers. Aides say that behind the scenes, Obama is demanding in his expectations for Afghanistan, which he has called the central front... in the battle against terrorism. One aide told the news service that part of the accountability built into the new plan is walking into the office over there - the Oval - and responding to the President when he says, 'Where are we on my nine objectives? A pair of upcoming events is about to push Afghanistan to the forefront of the news, after months in the background while Congress wrangled over the presidents domestic agenda: * President Hamid Karzai faces re-election on August 20 in a what an administration official called a chance to reset the Afghan political stage. Karzai has two serious challengers, although many allied officials think he will hold on. The United States is impartial: we do not support or oppose any particular candidates, an aide was quoted as saying. Our priority is that the Afghan people choose their president from a level playing field and under conditions that create an election outcome accepted as legitimate by the Afghan people and by the world. * McChrystal, the commanding general, is expected to call for additional troops in a strategic review to be delivered to the Pentagon in late August or early September. Thats going to be a momentous and painful decision for Obama, who already has encountered resistance from his own party to the wider commitment he announced in March. Officials say a call for new troops would be a tough sell, both in the Oval Office and on Capitol Hill, but are leaving their options open. The 143 reported American military fatalities so far this year mean 2009 is almost certain to replace 2008, when there were 155 American fatalities, as the bloodiest year to date in a conflict thats approaching its eighth full year.